Hair Color Makeover: Pastel Ombre

Brenda is a hairstylist at my salon who I made blonde over 12 years ago as a client. Her hair color is a natural level 3 and we had always taken her to a level 7 base and added half head of highlights and lowlights. Brenda has amazing hair, but now new fresh in the industry working on her own clients she wanted to do something fun and different with some pastel ombre coloring.

To start I had to color Brenda’s roots. I used Framesi Framcolor Futura 7N with 25 volume ossidor developer. This brought her roots up to the level 7 to make her base uniform. I then did a full head highlight. Matching the same weave on top and panels on the bottom to lighten, using Framesi de Color Diamond Bleach with 5 volume Proxima developer. Diamond is great because it lifts with even tone and adds shine.

I knew that we were going to go pastel with the ombre coloring, so I needed to bring Brenda’s warm blonde to a cool blond. To cut out the warmth I toned Brenda with Framesi Framcolor 2001 9P with 15 volume Proxima developer.

Now that Brenda had a nice cool pallet to work with it was time to add some of those fun colors. Using ChromaSilk PASTELS in Luscious Lavender and Pretty in Pink, I toned Brenda’s ends with two hues. Starting at the bottom, up three inches I used 100% pure ChromaSilk PASTELS, alternating between Luscious Lavender and Pretty in Pink. From there I blended a lightened version of the two colors, by mixing ½ tube of color with 10 pumps of conditioner. I blended the diluted color, from where the pure color ended up about 2 additional inches. I then added a third section of color by diluting the Pravana color with 1 inch of color and 5 pumps of conditioner and blended it about an inch and a half from where the previous color stopped.

After rinsing with cool water, I styled Brenda using a cocktail of be Clarked “straighten up” leave in conditioner and smoothing balm and “shine envy” argan oil serum. This gave Brenda color protection and ultimate shine. The end results a pretty palette of pastels, and a hairstylist with a new appreciation of color. -Clark Russell, Clark Russell Salon